


Lessons From a Quartermaster

by PhoenixCall



Series: Tales of a Quartermaster and a 00 [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: But bromance in the future, Gen, Not Slash, Will never be slash, can be read as a stand-alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 08:14:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1157231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixCall/pseuds/PhoenixCall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“There are five things I learned from the Quartermaster before me that you must take to heart. Learn them, live them, and whatever you do, never lose them.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He wondered if he had failed Q. He probably had. </em>
</p><p>The new Q ruminates on what the old Q had taught him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lessons From a Quartermaster

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, this is my first James Bond fic and the first part of a series exploring the new Q and 007's lives and platonic relationship. I am American so please feel free to correct me on my lack of knowledge of British terms and slang. I try, but I'm not British so if you are and you spot mistakes, feel free to drop a comment.
> 
> Also, I am in desperate need of a beta, if anyone wishes to help please shoot me a message.
> 
> Enjoy!

Q stared blankly forward, the crisp autumn wind slicing icy fingers through his cardigan. The knees of his trousers were dampened, moisture from the wet grass seeping through the fabric. It had rained the day before. His hands were shoved in his pockets to stave off the cold he no longer registered. He didn’t know how long he had been kneeling there, under-dressed for the weather and not caring in the least.

Malcolm Croft  
1939 – 2012

Nothing else. Just a name and two years. A birth year and a death year. Chiseled into plain gray stone. Nothing fancy. Malcolm Croft never liked fancy.

_Born October 27, 1939 in Edinburgh Scotland to mother Mary Denting and father Elliot Croft. Youngest child of three. Older brothers Bryce and Raymond died in the war at the ages of nineteen and eighteen. Older sister Jaimelynn died at the age of sixty from heart failure. Graduated from Cambridge University in 1962 earning degrees in Mechanical, Computer, and Electrical Engineering. Considered one of the most brilliant engineers of his time. Went on to do research in some of the most renowned centers in London. Was then contracted by the military and went into weapons design. Quickly rose through the ranks. Did not renew his military contract and spent five years playing the Stock Market before being employed by the government. Never married. No children. Three nephews, all in their thirties and Oxford graduates. Two accomplished lawyers and one banker, all married with children of their own. Died on September 10, 2012 due to an unfortunate car accident._

Q had read the files. He had read everything he could find about Malcolm Croft. Malcolm Croft who had a past and a family and three nephews who, though busy, still obviously cared for him. A Cambridge grad whose name and picture hung in the halls of the College of Engineering to be passed by talking students rushing to classes. Or so he had read.

 _It’s strange,_ he thought. It was like reading the life of a stranger, detached with only a mild hint of interest. Like reading about Churchill and Einstein and Walpole. He thought that perhaps reading them would cause him to feel something, see something, perhaps allow him to connect Malcolm Croft to the man who had taken him under his wing, treated him in equal parts as an apprentice, unruly student, and son. 

Malcolm Croft was a brilliant engineer with countless publications to his name, famous around the globe in a number of different fields. The man Q had known was brilliant, efficient, a man of few words yet when excitement struck him, a man of many. He rambled when he was nervous, which he almost never was. He was well put-together, organized, and always professional, even when he was expressing personal sentiment. Bitingly witty, many times to the point of being caustic. Always with a serious exterior even when making a joke. Always busy, tolerating no slacking or tomfoolery. Expecting and accepting nothing but the absolute best from all his employees in a way that inspired them to perform so. A micro-manager on occasion though never deaf to outside input as long as it was intelligently stated and relevant. He preferred coffee to tea (black, one sugar). Was the subject of many well-meaning gag-gifts which he took in professional stride with nary a reaction.

A mentor, a father figure, and even an occasional friend.

The man Q had known was not Malcolm Croft.

His eyes stared blankly at the dull grey slab, mind whirling and silent all at once, trying to connect the name on the stone with the man he had known.

He couldn’t.

_R’s attention was broken from the code he had been writing when he heard the thump of something being placed on his desk. It was a box. The aged Quartermaster was watching him expectantly._

_“It’s not going to open itself, you know,” he said in the same professional deadpan he used in every situation._

_Wordlessly, R reached for the small white box (cardboard, white gloss, 15cm x 15cm, contents heavy and clearly smaller than the box but packed tightly so as to not move around much, likely with tissue paper, small rip of the white gloss and lingering adhesive suggest having been opened before and recently, likely within the last forty eight hours) and opened it. When he moved aside the white tissue paper all he could do was stare._

_(White, ceramic, about 12cm high and 8cm in diameter, ceramic handle, about 3N)_

_A black stylized Q on white ceramic, subscript ten. It took several moments for his brain to process what he was seeing._

_Scrabble. The letter Q: worth ten points._

_“One of the most difficult pieces to play,” said Q, “and one of the most rewarding.”_

_R looked up at his mentor._

_“It was given to me as a gag gift by one of the 00’s who fancies himself a comedian. I already have a perfectly functioning mug and I daresay you will need it far more than I will someday. The mugs you use are particularly atrocious.”_

_There was nothing stuck in his throat. He just chose not to swallow._

_“Thank you.”_

_Q grunted. “You can thank me by doing your job. This is a government agency, after all. No time for lollygagging.”_

_And with that, he was off._

_It was five minutes before R put the mug back in the box. It was another twenty before his brain stopped short circuiting enough for him to start coding again. He kept the box in his sock drawer where he knew it would be safe._

Q swallowed thickly as the memory washed over him leaving him strangely numb. The previous Quartermaster had been the closest thing he had ever had to a father. Or at least the closest thing he could remember. _Orphans always make the best recruits._ He had been tough but not without compassion, ruthless but not without sympathy, serious but not without humor, professional but not without sentiment. He had been the greatest bloody man Q had ever known and he felt like an imposter taking his name.

_“There are five things I learned from the Quartermaster before me that you must take to heart. Learn them, live them, and whatever you do, never lose them.”_

_“Firstly, never joke about your work.”_

He remembers radios and guns and comm-links and a 00 agent who had most certainly failed his evals but had been told he had been cleared anyway. He had made a comment about exploding pens. _Never joke about your work,_ Q had said. There had been no exploding pens. He wonders if he had missed his meaning.

_“Secondly, it is always better to be cleverer than you appear rather than appear cleverer than you are.”_

Underestimation. _You still have spots._ He had been underestimated his whole life and had always taken great joy in seeing people realize how wrong they had been. He was one of the most dangerous men in the world. _Youth is no guarantee of innovation._ He was twenty four and had been programming since he was six. Engineering came later but just as easily. MI6 found him at eighteen and had offered him a job over imprisonment. He had taken it. He had always been clever and had learned to keep his cards close from an early age. But he had become too confident, too arrogant. He messed up. _A cartoon skull and black and red._

_Not such a clever boy._

_“Never let them see you bleed.”_

He remembers the breach, Q coming to him and all the branch’s best hackers getting to work. He had managed to disconnect M’s laptop from the network, locate and remotely disable four of the bombs in the building triggered by the hack before they went off. He left the other two to the rest of the team to try and tag the hacker. They all failed.

There had been two explosions. One in M’s office and one in Q Branch. Both had been lethal. If it weren’t for Danvers, he would be dead. Danvers didn’t survive.

 _“You have a lot of work to do, Q.”_ No smile, no pity, no congratulations (Thank God. He wouldn’t have been able to deal with that.), no time for grief or mourning or even full processing. Just a steady look that said business as usual. That was M, the iron woman. 

He was ordered to track a video and take it down from every site to which it had been posted (his security team had nearly cried when they found it had already been uploaded to thousands). They found it had also been mailed to every intelligence agency and terrorist organization worldwide and had conducted a ruthless purging of every intelligence database they could but it still wouldn’t be enough to keep the agents safe. They were moved to a new facility where he was put in charge of organizing the new Q Branch. He remembers how his mentor would always complain about their location. _“Whoever’s bright idea it was to put the Department with the most explosions in the foundation should be shot.”_

He remembers a laptop and Bond. Check this. He plugged it into the main system. A rookie mistake. He knew better. But he hadn’t. _Never let them see you bleed._ Too late for that. And now M was dead.

He had failed twice.

_Not such a clever boy._

He still looks around when people call for “Q.”

_“Always have an escape plan.”_

Doors opening, alarms blaring. _Not such a clever boy._ Silva’s manic laughter as he made his escape. Bond on the comm, chases, gunfire, explosions. She’s dead.

He wondered which choices she did regret. He wondered if he was one of them.

_NOT SUCH A CLEVER BOY._

There was no escape from death. Except for James Bond. M wasn’t James Bond. And it was all his fault.

 _Always have an escape plan._ Q was never very good at following his own advice. 

_“And above all, remember who you are, what you do, and why you do it. For Queen and Country. Always.”_

For Queen and Country. He would lose his name. He would take the title of a man he could never hope to ever equal, even though it felt like doing so made him an imposter. A traitor. He would risk his future and his career to catch a madman. _Well there goes my promising career in espionage._ He would put aside his own grief to ensure the survival, security, and management of one of the most essential branches of the government. And all of that just to fail. He wondered if the price was worth it.

_Always._

He wondered if he had failed Q. He probably had. He didn’t deserve the title. Not after what he had done. Or failed to do.

MI6 hadn’t even been able to properly mourn him. He died and they ran and they hid and then M was gone. Period. End of story.

It sure didn’t feel that way.

_“One of the most difficult pieces to play and one of the most rewarding.”_

_“I daresay you will need it far more than I will someday.”_

Q had been a man of few words yet a man of many. And as ever, he always knew the exact right thing to say.

“I won’t fail you.” A whisper, carried away on the wind as it left his lips. “Not again.” He stared at the tombstone.

Malcolm Croft  
1939 – 2012

_Died on September 10, 2012 due to an unfortunate car accident._

He still felt numb.

He began designing an exploding pen.


End file.
